Falling Apart
by A Touch of Insanity
Summary: Tyler says even the Mona Lisa's falling apart, and he's right. Everything's falling apart, like this thing between Tyler and me.  At any rate, I'll be one step closer to rock bottom.  one-shot, Tyler/Narrator slash, sex not smut


It's one of those things you never really get used to. After fists hitting flesh, after watching him circle some poor first-timer, all muscle and confidence and crazy, after hearing him and Marla-fucking-Sanger doing who knows what way too loudly, it just became one of those things. It was natural.

I want to be like Tyler.

I want Tyler.

Simple. It's what everyone thinks. Everyone's used to the occasional fight club boner, just a natural reaction to skin and adrenaline and inner demons. I didn't even think about it until he started fucking her. Until she came in, unwelcome.

Tyler's such a fucking tease.

He knows it, he does. The way he comes up behind me or winks or drops some comment that doesn't have to be taken that way, but I do and he knows I will. It's just there, an itch that doesn't go away, just there. I think about it too much.

I'm shaving in the crappy yellow light, trying to make some sort of pretense at being presentable for Monday. Back when I cared that much. I'm just shaving and in comes Tyler with his swagger. He comes up behind me, fingers a spot on my jaw.

"Missed a spot," he says.

I knew that.

I keep shaving, going gently around the hole in my cheek. Then Tyler presses his fingers into a bruise on my shoulder blade without warning. It _hurts_, but I keep shaving. Another, this one on my collarbone. He's looking at my bruises in the mirror, figuring out which one to try next. My ribs, right on the one that's been cracked for a couple weeks now. I wince.

Could you not?

He grins, resting his head on my shoulder, tracing that one bruise.

"I'll stop when you want me to."

He licks his lips the way he did before he gave me the lye-kiss, and it makes me a little nervous. As he moves his mouth to suck a spot behind my ear, he presses his fingers into the bruise again, harder. The razor clatters into the sink. He doesn't stop, just massages the bruise. My knuckles go white against the edge of the sink. This isn't the worst I've felt, but it's toeing the line of bearable.

"Your hands don't leave the sink," Tyler says. He worries the button on my pants. "If they leave the sink, this is over." I wonder for a moment if this is actually happening, but Tyler pushes my trousers and underwear past my hips and the question's answered. I am Jack's open-mouthed anticipation.

I'm not Marla, I say, I'm not some bitch you can fuck and dump.

"I want to use something and you want to lose yourself. That's all this is. Nothing changes. And your hands don't leave the sink. Understood?" I nod, watching him in the mirror as he sucks his fingers into his mouth. This isn't really happening. This isn't real.

Tyler quirks his eyebrows at me in the mirror.

Tyler presses the bruise at the bottom of my ribcage.

Tyler pushes his fingers into me.

This is when I thank God, thank _Tyler_ for giving me the sink for support. Because I need it. I was not prepared for this, for Tyler's fingers, that one kiss-scarred hand, edging into me. "Relax," he says, but I don't know how. I've never known how to relax, let alone for this. And then Tyler's sucking new bruises into my neck with teeth just hinted at before a bite. The fingers near my ribs play the piano on the mottled purple skin as I watch in the mirror. And always, when I look up, I see him watching, sizing me up, the way he did just before "_I want you to hit me as hard as you can_".

Just fucking do it, I hiss at him. Tyler's hand slips from my ribs to my jaw and he twists me into a kiss, sort of a farewell and enjoy what's coming to you. I taste blood on his tongue, hot and familiar the way it is that moment right after a fight, when you first realize the taste. It tastes like our first fight. Raw. Wanted.

And then he pulls away, smirking a little, like this is some joke to him. It probably is. Smirking as he spits in his hand. A second later, he bites my shoulder and pushes in and I'm gripping the sink too hard, maybe splitting my nails, and now the blood in my mouth is my own, my lip stuck between my teeth.

This is what it takes to break, to hit rock bottom. It takes Tyler's fingers buried in my hipbones, making marks, adding new bruises in pairs. It takes my knuckles ready to split on the edges of the sink, and it takes Tyler's mouth searching for a kiss somewhere near my jaw. His hands mold me to him and that thrust feels a little less like falling apart, and the next. I let him find my mouth again, and I feel him smile when he tastes the blood.

Real people don't love like this.

Somewhere between the breaking and the holding on, it starts making more sense. I start to like Tyler's sweat, his body flush against mine, twisting into me. It was never about liking it. It was about having it. Being had. I just needed it, that's all. I needed him to hurt me, and it's not working quite the same. Tyler shifts just the smallest bit against me and it hits something that makes my elbows and knees buckle so my cheek gets pressed against the mirror. He just grips my hips tighter, and maybe his nails are pressing in enough to break my skin, but it's clear now that he was holding back before.

And the things he starts whispering, they're almost nonsense, but they're filthy, they're debauched, they're perverse, and they're beautiful. This is how Tyler Durden fucks, with bruised hips and that depraved chorus and sweat and this mad rhythm, the same he has when he's beating some poor fuck into the floor at fight club. Relentless. Over and over, and I'd like to pretend that I wasn't whining against the mirror, my breath fogging the glass, that I was pushing back against him because I _need_ this, I _want_ this, and I _have_ it. He has me, Tyler has me, he's taking me because he absolutely can, and _fuck_-

I am Jack's total loss for words.

I don't think, I just sort of slide down the mirror, crumpling, as he finishes. He presses a few wet kisses to my back, hasty, an afterthought, then he pulls out and leaves. Gives me a little pat on the ass, like _Well done. You did good. _Like he's some sort of father-figure. Fuck him.

I pull up my pants, clean my cum off the sink, put on a not-just-fucked face. Nothing just happened. This is a normal day. Everything is fine.

Tyler laughs when I swing a punch at his smirk, laughs even though his lip is definitely bleeding.

And like that, it's all fine.

I can go back to listening to him fucking Marla, watching him beat the shit out of other guys, and I can wish it was me every time. It's all fine now.


End file.
